Meta is back in court, but this time it’s a lone defendant.
Opening arguments begin on Monday in a high-profile trial brought by the state of New Mexico against Meta, which allegedly failed to safeguard apps like Facebook and Instagram from online predators who targeted child users, according to Raúl Torrez, the state’s attorney general.
Originally filed in 2023, the suit claims that Meta “steered and connected users — including children — to sexually explicit, exploitative and child sex abuse materials and facilitated human trafficking” within the state.
“What we are really alleging is that Meta has created a dangerous product, a product that enables not only the targeting of children, but the exploitation of children in virtual spaces and in the real world,” Torrez told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday.
The trial is one of several significant cases involving Meta this year that could have major repercussions on the company and the broader social media industry. Experts have said the lawsuits resemble those brought against “Big Tobacco” in the 1990s, due to the alleged harm the products can have on users, and the efforts by tobacco companies to mislead the public about the negative effects.
In January, a trial kicked off in Los Angeles stemming from plaintiffs’ allegations that Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap failed to tell the public about the safety of their social and video-streaming apps, despite knowing that the designs and certain features were harmful to the mental health of young users. TikTok and Snap settled with a plaintiff involved in the case before the trial commenced.
Opening statements in the L.A. trial were supposed to begin last week, but were delayed following the unexpected illness of a lead attorney. A Meta spokesperson said 18 jury members were impaneled Friday afternoon and that opening arguments begin on Monday. Instagram head Adam Mosseri is scheduled to testify on Wednesday, followed a week later by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Many of New Mexico’s allegations against Meta were derived from an undercover operation conducted by the attorney general that involved the creation of a fake social media profile modeled after a 13-year-old girl. Torrez previously told CNBC that the dummy social media profile, “was simply inundated with images and targeted solicitations, which, frankly, I found to be shocking.”
Meta has denied the allegations and said in various statements to the media that the company is “focused on demonstrating our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.”
Torrez told CNBC on Monday that Meta could face significant financial penalties, but fundamentally, he wants the company to make changes.
“We need to have real age verification. We need to have changes to product design so that they don’t connect kids with, with predators on the platform. We need full disclosures in terms of making their users aware of the … potential harm and danger,” he said.
Although social media businesses have argued that content shared on their apps is protected under the Section 230 provision of the Communications Decency Act, the overall theme among the various lawsuits is that tech companies have allegedly endangered young users through the design and features of their apps.
Later this year, another trial is slated to start in the Northern District of California. That federal case involves Meta, TikTok, YouTube and Snap, and centers on allegations that the companies built defective apps that resulted in teens and children developing unhealthy and addictive behaviors.
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